1. Eph. 6:10-18 Battling Spiritually and Clashing with the Unseen part 1

Posted on August 7, 2011 by stevemidkiff

Battling Spiritually and Clashing with the Unseen part 1

Ephesians 6:10-18 Be Invincible In Battle

Joni Erickson shared a story about the unknown Polly, sister of William Carey, and an anonymous bedridden soldier of the gospel.

William Carey started out as a British cobbler, a shoemaker, who felt a deep burden for the nations of the world. He made a globe map of the world out of leather, tacked it up on his wall, and then, while he worked on shoes, he prayed for the various nations. Eventually, the Lord made it possible for William Carey to go to India as one of the first missionaries to that land. God gifted Carey with tremendous abilities. In fact, he translated the Bible into 37 different Indian dialects.

But William Carey didn’t do all of these things through his own power. While he labored in the distant land of India, back in England, William Carey had a sister whom he affectionately called Polly – Polly was bedridden and almost completely paralyzed for 52 years. William wrote to Polly all about the details of his struggle to create primers and dictionaries in the various Indian dialects, as well as the difficulty of figuring out how to get these books typed and printed. And with every letter from William that she received, Polly lifted these needs up before the Throne. Every day for 52 years, she faithfully prayed for her brother.

Now I don’t have to tell you that really inspired me. There she is Polly for all intents and purposes a quadriplegic, unable to walk or use her hands. But that didn’t paralyze her prayer life. And, oh, were William Carey’s efforts blessed by God – not only was India reached for Christ, but what he did became a model for modern missionaries even to this day… all because a paralyzed woman prayed.

A lot of people know about the work of William Carey, but not many people know about the sister behind the scenes whose prayers guaranteed the success of his efforts. Polly’s testimony tells me that the life of any Christian can have huge repercussions for the kingdom. Think of it: if God can use bedridden quadriplegics to open doors to the Gospel around the world, what can He do through your prayers? Little wonder the Bible says, “Pray without ceasing.” … For God knows what great things are accomplished when people pray.

What an amazing testimony. Should we be surprised that the Lord chose to do such great things through William Carey when he had such a prayer warrior pleading with the Lord for his work?

ENLIGHTEN US TO

       MANAGE OUR ADORNMENT

       MEASURE OUR ADVERSARY         

       MANEUVER OUR ARENA 

       MAKE USE OF OUR ARMOR

MANAGE OUR ADORNMENT

   Our Preparation

      Be a Finisher                                   Finally

Be a Family                                      my brethren

Be a Fighter                                     be strong

Our Attire Christ’s Strength     be strong

Ps31:24
 Develop in us courage to wait in prayer for heart strengthening , Help us to 
Find our capacity in Christ, to be enabled with His endowment & advantaged with His ability

Courage

Dismantle the desperation of despairing in discouragement

Our Approval Christ’s Life              in the Lord

The Lord is our strength in time of trouble Ps.37: 39

Inspire us in impossible odds through incredible options

Our Ability Christ’s Energy              in the power

O Lord my strength & my refuge & my fortress in the day of affliction Jeremiah 16:19

I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me Phil. 4:13

Our Ascendancy Christ’s Capability of his might

Blessed is the man whose strength is in you Ps.84:5

The joy of the Lord is our strength Neh. 8:10

Posted in EPHESIANS 6 | Leave a comment

2. Eph. 6:10-18 Battling Spiritually and Clashing with the Unseen Ephesians 6:10-18

Posted on August 5, 2011 by stevemidkiff

2. Battling Spiritually and Clashing with the Unseen Ephesians 6:10-18

John Calvin in his journaling of the Institutes says that if we do not pray, we are like a person who neglects a treasure, buried and hidden in the earth, after it has been pointed out to us.

It’s so easy and typical to get hobbled and stagger by all the mysteries of prayer.  Before we realize it our scheduled times of communion are stifled. Then our voice becomes muffled as we asphyxiated where they’re our little to no expressions to our source of power over problems. We must cry out in continual dependence on the Lord as He’s asked us too.

I’m going to jump ahead in Ephesians to the 6th Chapter verses 10-18.

I’ll begin by presenting a prayer outline of the section as an overview and then hope to break it down a piece at a time in a scrutiny of personal inspection and breakdown analysis.

Ephesians 6:10-18 Be Invincible In Battle

Establish Strength in Christ to Overcome All

ENLIGHTEN US TO

       MANAGE OUR ADORNMENT

       MEASURE OUR ADVERSARY         

       MANEUVER OUR ARENA 

       MAKE USE OF OUR ARMOR

MANAGE OUR ADORNMENT

Our Preparation

     Be a Finisher                   Finally


Enable us to finished the course to keep the faith To finish the work which you have given us to do

Be a Family                   my brethren

Give us authentic spiritual connections that are supplied experientially by genuine energy in Christ’s life

Be a Fighter                  be strong

In conclusion be strong, not in yourselves but in the Lord, & in the power of his boundless resource

Our Attire Christ’s Strength be strong


Be of good courage…he’ll strengthen your hearts

Ps31:24
 Develop in us courage to wait in prayer for heart strengthening , Help us to 
Find our capacity in Christ, to be enabled with His endowment & advantaged with His ability

Courage

Dismantle the desperation of despairing in discouragement

Our Approval Christ’s Life              in the Lord

The Lord is our strength in time of trouble Ps.37:39 Inspire us in impossible odds through incredible options

Our Ability Christ’s Energy              in the power


O Lord my strength & my refuge & my fortress in the day of affliction Jeremiah 16:19

I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me Phil. 4:13

Our Ascendancy Christ’s Capability of his might

Blessed is the man whose strength is in you Ps.84:5

The joy of the Lord is our strength Neh. 8:10

Our Protection

Put on God‘s complete armor so that you can successfully resist all the devil’s methods of attack.

Be a Force


Our Array Christ’s Clothing             Put on

Awake, awake put on your strength put on your beautiful garment Isa.52:1

Envelop us in the enhancements of Your fashionable garb

Robe us in Your elegance of strength and enable us In our weakness to consistently depend on You our defender. Grace in each of our disadvantages

Give creativity in our unfavorable circumstances

Our Armor Christ’s Completion        the whole armor


It is God that girds me with strength & makes my way perfect Ps.18:32

Our Almighty Is Christ                          of God

He’ll shepherd His flock in the strength of the Lord Mic. 5:2

You are our life, light, love and our Lord

Our Attitude Christ’s Courage           that ye may be able


Intrigue us with Your ability through us to accomplish all things

Our Aggression Christ’s Conflict        stand against


Dispatch us to enter in fully to the spiritual conflict in Christ

MEASURE Our Adversary v 11-12

     Satan Is a Defeated Foe

Guide our faith in how all that was against us is null and void

    Satan Is a Destructive Force

Keep us from drooping to the disparaging pummeling of the evil one

He’s a Twisted & Devious Schemer      the wiles

Give us discretionary shrewdness to isolate every cunning trick

He’s a Tricky Diabolical Slanderer      of the devil

Develop our discernment in the evasive deceptions of all that is around us

     Satan Is a Decided Fact

For our fight is not against any physical enemy:

         He Tussles

In this vigorous struggle guide our every move to productivity

         He’s Temperamental

In the face of a variety of mood changes in others train us to be correct & compelling

We Struggle and Not Against People   For we wrestle not against flesh


Inspire us with intensity to grapple effectively & keep us from being thrown to the ground

Decipher for us the demonic impulsion behind the human oppositions we face

We Speculate and Stare

People are pawns              and blood,

Guide our view beyond the person to prayerful discovery of the root cause of each opposition & adversarial imposition

Satan Is a Dominating Facilitator

it is against organizations & powers that are spiritual

Principle Botching Controlling Power but against principalities

Pick out to us the contrast of Your design principles & the notable difference of all that’s demonically destructive that botches Your truth

Political Binding Constitutional Power against powers,

Uncover the lurid unscrupulous decline in political positioning & the Satanic backing of constitutional adjusting

We are up against the unseen power that controls this dark world, and spiritual agents from the very headquarters of evil

      Philosophical Blinding Cosmic Power  

                                                                          against the rulers of the darkness of this world

Alert our realization to recognize real conspiracy & the cosmic debauching power that’s plotting & conspiring underneath it

        Perversity Bondage Corrupting Power   against spiritual wickedness

Disclose every twist & warp against Your truth and light

Posture Bearing Challenging Positions    in high places

Define to us that no matter how promoted & high in position another may be in, that we can cast all in prayer to your hands in the face of every challenge

MANEUVER OUR ARENA v. 12

    We Grapple With Satan and His:

      Capable Deceivers Strategic            against principalities

Enhance our capability to rely on You for comprehension superior to those who deceive

Countless Demons Supernatural      against powers

Enable us to rest in Your infinite power which is greater then every demonic power that is arrayed against us

      Crowned Dignities Sinister against the rulers of the darkness of this world

Uncover to our clear view the maneuvering & manipulating that’s taking place under the supervision of the rulers of the darkness of this present world system

Conquering Deputies Spiritual   against spiritual wickedness in high places

Describe precisely the spiritual twisting that pervades with crisis influence even in the spiritual realm of our fellowships from their positions in high places causing havoc in our religious domains.

MAKE USE OF OUR ARMOR v.13-17

Therefore you must wear the whole armor of God that you may be able to resist evil in its day of power, and that even when you have fought to a standstill you may still stand your ground.

A Demand that’s Inclusive    Wherefore take unto you


Place in our grasp the faith to reach out to You for every defensive & offensive weapon at our disposal for Your glory, honor & will to be done

     A Defense that’s Impregnable

Show us how it’s impossible for us to be broken down or exploited as we place our all into Your faithful hands & loving heart

All Embracing                           the whole armor of God

Detail in our consciousness each piece of armor & how it’s all from You

All Enabling                              that ye may be able

Employ in us a meticulous attentiveness to our abilities in the Lord & Your activities in & through us.

All Enduring                            to withstand in the evil day

Relay resistance to persist undamaged & unaffected in the evil day that hems every step

All Encompassing                  and having done all, to stand
 Deliver us from

                               insufficiency by depending on Your sufficiency in every detail & duty

Take your stand then with truth as your belt, righteousness your breastplate and we take in our hand the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God.

A Decision that’s Insistent                          Stand therefore

Show us our area of least resistance where the forces of darkness seek an invasion & enable us to stand in the liberty you have provided for us by Your Spirit.

Procreative Power A Surrounding Reality having your loins girt

                                                                                          about with truth

 Deepen our comprehension & penetration into Your word

Guide us in engrafting key sections of biblical truth in our life

Garrison our heart & gird our inner being in Your principles

Participating Power A Sensed Righteousness

        Righteousness Revealed                       and having

Reveal Your righteousness to us & in us

Righteousness Required                         on

Stabilize us to depend on Your Spirits filling to produce spiritual fruit in righteous character

Righteousness Received                         the breastplate

Keep our heart with all diligence by the breastplate of right

Righteousness Reproduced                   of righteousness

Produce in us continuously the character of Christ

The Gospel of peace firmly on your feet, salvation as your helmet and in your hand the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God

Practiced Power A Stable Route      And your feet shod

Develop in our every movement to walk as Jesus walked in a life style of love, compassion & prayerful dependent humility

Personal Power A Studied Routine   with the preparation

Prepare our every moment in motivated prayer meditation

Peaceable Power A Serene Reason     of the gospel of peace

Teach our tongue in the art of peacemaking through the serene communication of Your life giving truth

Primary Power A Shield of Reliance    Above all taking the shield of faith

Surround our inner person with growth in the shielding faith of complete trust in You

Poised Power A Security of Resistance wherewith

Against Slanderous Remarks                 ye shall be able to quench

Develop resilience in us to stand tall under slander

Against Scorching Rage                all the fiery darts

Extinguish every flaming dart with spiritual refreshing in truth

Against Slurring Results                  of the wicked

Take every slurring word & gesture formed against us, and change it into a blessing

Above all be sure you take faith as your shield, for it can quench every burning missile the enemy hurls at you.

Perspective Power of Solution Resolution

Reveal to us every prospect of Your power availability to us

A Scholarly Rationality Our Intellect

Incline us to draw on Your power in the rational processing of every thought & give us a scholars grasp of Your word

Stable and Liberated of a Wise-man  And take the helmet of salvation

Protect our mind from incorrect logic & guide us into delivery

A Specific Relay Our Interaction

Thank you Jesus for combating the Devil with simple phrases of the word. Show how our life depends on words that come from You.

Sharp and Lunging of a Warrior         and the sword of the Spirit

Teach us to be incisive & specific with Your principles of truth

Train us in the penetrating power of the rhemas of Spirit words

Show us our dependence on Spirit intervention for renewal, restoration & sustaining results in life

Instruct us to never be ashamed of the good words of deliverance that are the power of God to work salvation to those who receive it.

Our Instruction is Specific & Sovereign     which is the word of God

Demonstrate that by Your word all things we’re created & that things continue in dependence on Your word Ps 33:6; 147:15

Our Intervention is Steady & Regular          Praying always

Men ought always to pray and not faint Lk.18:1

Pray with every kind of spiritual prayer Be worried about nothing but in everything by

prayer Phil. 4:6

Our Intercession is Supportive & Relentless          with all prayer

Help us to continue in prayer & To devote ourselves to prayer. Col. 4:2

Requests and supplication in the Spirit

Develop us in expressing constant endlessness in prayer

With an earnest in prayer an exact entreaty in prayer & an empathy in prayer for others.

Results      and watching there unto

Advance us to be expectant watchmen for Spiritual solutions

Resolve    with all perseverance (keep alert & persistent)

Make us steadfast despite difficulty or delay (pray for everyone)

Recordable         and supplication for all saints

Generate an attitude of imploring desperation for You & burden us with supplicating passionate prayer for others

Expedite  Oh Lord their every action that all activity would be according to Your will

Encourage  their feet to move swiftly in Your ways

Establish  the order of their hearts to find their complete joy & strength in You

Engorge with spiritual wisdom to discern You

Enthuse them in scripture meditation…

Elicit Escape from fleshly danger

Enable in wisdom not foolishness

Empower by your Spirit to stand in the gap

Embolden them to pump the Iron of Prayer

Enlighten in mutual submission rather than serving independence

Train to Walk Worthy Of Your Calling

Teach to Walk In Humility not in Pride

Tutor to Walk In Unity Not in Division

Touch With Light to avoid Dark

Triumph a Walk in The New not the old self

Temper To Walk In Love avoiding Lust…

Tame In The Fullness Of Your Spirit Rather Than The Folly Of The Drunkenness Of Wine

Posted in EPHESIANS 6 | Leave a comment

4. Psalms 1:1 Who Are We Walking With part 4

Posted on August 4, 2011 by stevemidkiff

Psalms 1:1 Who Are We Walking With part 4

The Palace Of Blessing   Psalm 1:1-3

Saturate in Your Blessings v.1

                              Blessed is the man

  Direct Our Steps

                              that walks not in the counsel of the ungodly

Walk is a reference to the direction we are taking, our way of life, our personal, mental, emotional, and social patterns, and the habitual routine of our days.

Counsel is the advice, plan, scheme and strategy of another.  It can come through an individual, educational system, our parents, our peers, the media, our entertainment, and the literature we read, the music, TV, and movie input we acquiesce to.

Ungodly denotes those who turn their back on God in revolt and turn their face and heart to do what is evil and wrong.   This is a category of people who habitually attempt to redefine wrong, because they are committed to living in sin, and are intent on continuing with wrongdoing.

Ungodly is often rendered as wicked in scripture. It is the same Hebrew term.

  1. The wicked refuse to seek God, Ps. 10:4
  2. The wicked challenge God, Ps. 10:13
  3. The wicked love violence, Ps. 11:5
  4. The wicked oppress the righteous, Ps. 17:9
  5. The wicked don’t keep their commitments, Ps. 37:21
  6. The wicked attempt to stumble the righteous Ps 119:110
  7. The ungodly & wicked are going to perish, Ps. 1:6
  8. The wicked will be stunned by sorrows, Ps. 32:10
  9. The wicked will fall by their devices, Ps. 141:1

When it goes well with the righteous, the city rejoices:

When the wicked perish, there is Joy, Prov. 11:10

The first ungodly counsel was given by the Devil.  He advised Eve and Adam of the benefits of disobedience.  He challenged God’s counsel and redefined what the results of listening to his demonic direction would be.  He described deceptive benefits that would be achieved in following his satanic direction.

The classic example of bad counsel sought and listened too was with Rehoboam. He is the only mentioned son of Solomon which is amazing in and of itself seeing Solomon most likely had a phenomenal number of children.

Rehoboam was to reign after Solomon’s death and was making a vital determination to the future of the kingdom. Rehoboam had the opportunity to continue the dynasty of David, his grandfather and Solomon his father, with the same blessings that they enjoyed.  But he listened and yielded to ungodly counsel, which resulted in civil war for hundreds of years and the loss of thousands of lives.

The division of the Israeli dynasty was the beginning of a corrosive, corrupting chaos that weakened them to centuries of foreign domination and slavery.

The right counsel was to show kindness and gentleness with diplomacy and tactful mediation.  Instead Rehoboam followed the wrong counsel of harshness, brutality, manipulation, threats and crass insensitivity.

We can so readily take the path of abrasive severity and glaring strictness just like Rehoboam, when humble consideration and thoughtful concern would win the moment.

In the book One Nation Under Therapy, by Christina Hoff Somers, the topic is discussed of how our culture is suffering from an eroding self-reliance.  This is an interesting theory.  My suggestion is that our culture is eroding from too much self-reliance and an obvious addiction to wrong counsel.

Bad counsel means bad choices and bad choices results in bad consequences.

God wants us to listen to His counsel only, and to those who are attentive to His counsel.  Counsel is one of the many synonyms referring to God’s Word.  We really need to ask ourselves, how could any advice that wasn’t based on God’s principles ever lead us to a functional end result?  Don’t we claim to believe that He is the designer and that His plans and directions are based on His perfect love and delight in us?  He has only one intention and that is for us to prosper in His blessings and joy.

All who turn away from God and the counsel of His Word and all who pride themselves in staying ignorant of His truth are banished to failure and nothingness.  What a conundrum to be chained to a vacuum of oblivion.

Ps 33:10-11 The Lord brings the counsel of the ungodly nations to nothing: He makes the devices of the people of none effect.

The only counsel that promises success and stands the test of time and eternity is God’s Word.

The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of His heart to all generations

We humans keep brainstorming options and plans, but

God’s purpose is the only truth that prevails.  Our mastery over our various circumstances where we’ve submitted to our shortsighted counsel to fulfill our dreams and ambitions is only a matter of the question of when God intervenes His timetable.

Proverbs 19:21 There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the LORD, that shall stand.

In Isaiah’s prophecy he describes how ridiculous for Judah to look to Egypt for help when there is a time coming in the future when Egypt will be freaked out in fear of Israel.  God will make them a dominant force in the world in the prophetic future.

It’s the same application for any who know the Lord.  Why would we look to those who reject Him for our education, advice and direction?  Our strength and blessing are in waiting on the Lord and the counsel of His word.  The smallest and weakest of individuals is as an army in the Lord for nothing stands up against His counsel.

Isa 19:17 And the land of Judah shall be a terror unto Egypt, every one that makes mention thereof shall be afraid in himself, because of the counsel of the LORD of hosts, which he hath determined against it.

Jer. 23:18 For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it?

Jer. 49:20 Therefore hear the counsel of the LORD, that he hath taken against Edom; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against the inhabitants of Teman: Surely the least of the flock shall draw them out: surely he shall make their habitations desolate with them.

Jer. 50:45 Therefore hear ye the counsel of the LORD, that he hath taken against Babylon; and his purposes, that he hath purposed against the land of the Chaldeans: Surely the least of the flock shall draw them out: surely he shall make their habitation desolate with them.

When everything is so shallow and like a house of cards before the Lord, why would we bow to counsel from any but Him?  The tower of babel is brought to confusion and the millions are scattered.  The nations are less then a drop in a bucket and their weight is smaller then a spec of dust.

God’s counsel in His word is the only thing to stand on. Every thing else is shifting sand.  Blessed is the person who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly.  Blessed is the one who finds all their life direction in the Lord and His Word.

Cause each of our decisions to be under the influence of Your Spirit and the motivating integrity of the design of Your Word.

Posted in PSALMS 1 | 1 Comment

3. Eph 1 4 Savoring the Riches of Selection part 3

Posted on August 3, 2011 by stevemidkiff

Eph. 1:4 Savoring the Riches of Selection part 3

Communicate to us Our Riches

   In Our Sovereign Father v.3-6

Amplify Your Purposes   v.4

Connect For Us Our Past Election      

            According as he hath chosen us in him

            before the foundation of the world,

Certify Our Present Encouragement  

             that we should be holy and

             without blame before him

The factional aspects of the doctrine of election where people split and divide are one the most annoying disruptions of the Christian community.  They are the freaky verbal puffing of a finite brain attempting to polarize these beautiful truths and privileges from an infinite God.

Knowledge puffs the brain but only love builds the body.  The first phrase in Eph. 1:4 is the most incredible truth imaginable.  He chose us, how cool is that?  Why fight over that and get so weird with it.

God chose us in Christ, the most perfect person and the only complete provision known in all eternity.  When the wealthiest person of the entire universe selects us to share in His riches and closeness of relationship how can we not be pumped in His privileges.

Next He made us His preference and selection before anything had been created.  That’s when He decided on us and picked us out.  We were elected to experience the limitless infiniteness of His love and grace.

Choice has to do with a big word called foreordaining.  To foreordain means to determine an event or conclusion in advance of its happening.

I have to repeat the thought again, why debate this truth?  If an infinitely rich and powerful person determines to pick me to have his riches and power in a relationship with him how can I not be elated and ecstatic?  But if I don’t believe it, misunderstand or reject it, then I can excuse my disappointment by conducting my existence with a paltry dismal participation of depressive life experiences.

First we have the person who does the selecting, who is our God and Father.  Then we have the perfect God/man we are chosen in who is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Next we have the period of the selection, which is before the foundation of the earth.

Finally we see the purpose of the selecting, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.

Certify Our Present Encouragement 

                                                  that we should be holy and

                                                   without blame before him

All credit goes to God for our selecting, all confidence is in God for our salvation and all character is from God for our sanctification.  What a wonderful privilege to realize the perfections of our position.  We are viewed as holy and without blame before God in the deepest love imaginable.

This truth that we are holy means we’re set apart for special dealings to reveal God’s purity and transparent spotlessness.

The phrase without blame means that there are no blemishes; there is not one mark against us before Him.

Before Him speaks of a piercing stare that sees right down into a thing. It refers here to the penetrating look of the Spirit as He sees right down into our secret being, through all of the superficialities, duplicity, and pretentiousness of human treachery and feeble weakness. This refers to a present, searching gaze of God into the inner character of the saint.  Our God and Father sees no faults, He’s satisfied, with the spotlessness of the Lord Jesus as the positional viewed character of His set apart ones.

Alford says; it implies a special nearness and dearness to Him—as bearing a foretaste of the time when the elect shall be before the throne of God.

A paradox is something that is peppered with irony; on the surface we think it’s inconsistent, contradictory and maybe even absurd.

The teaching of Election is a paradox and the two side of this irony are that God’s choice of us does not eliminate our responsibility to believe in Christ by faith.

Our position in Christ of being set apart and blameless doesn’t reduce our duty to discipline ourselves for the purpose of Godliness.

We are accountable to persevere to the end.  We are to live in total commitment to Christ and yet it is all done by God’s Spirit in our life.

We can’t explain election and the opposing issues that whosoever wills is saved.  It’s a paradox, which needs to stay in balance with its two sides.  Don’t intellectualize and philosophize it to the point of getting all puffed up about it.  We have the invisible aspects of salvation and the visible aspects, God’s sovereignty and men and women’s human responsibility.

H.A. Ironside illustrates the human and the divine side in the following story:

Here is a vast host of people hurrying down the broad road with their minds fixed upon their sins, and one stands calling attention to yonder door, the entrance into the narrow way that leads to life eternal. On it is plainly depicted the text,

“Whosoever will let him come.”

Every man is invited, and no one need hesitate. Some may say, “Well, I may not be of the elect, and so it would be useless for me to endeavor to come, for the door will not open for me.” But God’s invitation is absolutely sincere: it is addressed to every man,

Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely Rev. 22:17

If men refuse to come, if they pursue their own godless way down to the pit, whom can they blame but themselves for their eternal judgment? The messenger addressed himself to all, the call came to all, the door could be entered by all, but many refused to come and perished in their sins. Such men can never blame God for their eternal destruction. The door was open; the invitation was given, they refused, and He says to them sorrowfully,

“Ye will not come unto Me, that ye might have life.”

But see, as the invitation goes forth, every minute someone stops and says, “What is that?”

“The way to life,” is the reply, “Ah, that I might find the way to life! I have found no satisfaction in this poor world.” We read,

“She that lives in pleasure is dead while she lives.”

“I should like to know how to be free from my sin, how to be made fit for the presence of God.” And such a one draws near and listens, and the Spirit of God impresses the message upon his heart and conscience and he says, “I am going inside: I will accept the invitation; I will enter that door,” and he presses his way in and it shuts behind him. Then, as he turns around, he finds written on the inside of the door the words, “Chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world.” “What!” he says, “Had God His heart fixed on me before ever the world came into being?” Yes, but he could not find it out until he got inside. You see, you can pass the door if you will, you can trample the love of God beneath your feet, you can spurn His grace if you are determined to do it, but you will go down to the pit and you will be responsible for your own doom.

Posted in EPHESIANS 1 | Leave a comment

3. The Palace Of Blessing (the real blessed man & our joy to share it ) Psalm 1:1 part 3

Posted on August 2, 2011 by stevemidkiff

The Palace Of Blessing                     Psalm 1:1 part 3

Saturate in Your Blessings v.1    Blessed is the man

The blessed people, as we shared in part 1, were the children of the father of faith, Abraham.  They became a nation, Israel, and yet over the passing of centuries, have turned from God ultimately rejecting their King, the Lord Jesus Christ, sent to them from God.  The result of this snubbing and refusing of Christ was the crucifixion of Jesus, which God used for His glory.  When the Lord rose to life and ascended back to His heaven many responded to the ascended Man but the nation still rejected Him.  The results have been tragic to the Jews as a nation.

But still we see, in the Jews, a significant blessing in their influence on the world from God.  They we’re to be the head of blessing to all of humanity but the prince of darkness has deceived them and they have been cut off for a time as if they were blind.

They were still the channels God used to communicate His Word of revelation of Him self to humanity. They are the chosen individuals God called to send His Son through, as the source of all blessing.

The ultimate blessed man is Jesus, and our blessings are all to be discovered and attained in Him.  These are not accomplishments in earthly achievements and assets even though they may be realized. These are blessings of spiritual attainments in Christ and changing into the qualities of His characteristic of love as He lives in us.

The blessed person is an individual who understands the divergence of the road to ruin away from Jesus and the road to rejoicing in Christ.

The blessed person is anyone who has a living relationship with Jesus Christ and has heard the call of His voice on their life and opened their heart to receive Him, accept His person for all that He is.  They acknowledge their need of His life given to take away our sin. They are alert of any revolt against God and His principles.

Robert Frost’s made use of the idea in the poem

“The Road Not Taken.”

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference

Dante begins the Divine Comedy with thought on the opposite road,

Midway this way of life we’re bound upon,

I woke to find myself in a dark wood,

Where the right road was wholly lost and gone.

Solomon delineates these two paths of rejoicing in blessing or the path of declining in ruin in the book of Proverbs.  They are under two heads between the blessings of wisdom in one’s life contrasted to the cursing of foolishness in another’s life.

In Proverbs there are a variety of qualities in character placed under the umbrella of wisdom.  Then there is an array of twists of perversions in oddball eccentricities in individuals placed under the umbrella of folly.

We choose the path we want to walk in. Between these two roads, we examine ourselves, are we stepping on the path of blessing or staggering onto the wide road of cursing?

The all-inclusive purpose of God in reaching out and creating us is that we might be blessed in our being with His life.

The all-embracing persistence of God in chasing after us in the squalor of our defying Him and His plans for us is to bless us with His life.

The all en-compassing passion of God in communicating His Words to us and revealing His life to us in the personality and self humbling sacrificial love of Jesus Christ is to bless us with His life.

The blessed person is the individual who is being immersed and filled with the life of God.  God is the only one who blesses.  He’s the source and giver of true blessing.  God is love and the distinguishing characteristic of perfect love is to prosper those that are the object of His love.

Jesus has come to take the curse and erase it’s taint so that now we are in Him sharing His entire blessing.  He takes what may seem a curse now and turns all to a blessing.

We now are to take each day and say, this is the day that the Lord has made, we will rejoice and be glad in it.  We find our blessing in handing ourselves over to the mercies of God.

We see the external forces that are at work in the pressures of the world around us.  There are stresses and demands; they are constantly pushing on us, demanding to conform us to their pattern and taxing us into their scheme.  It’s the world that is grabbing at us to rob us of our blessings in Christ.

God’s Spirit voices out to us that we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ.  It is ours but we have to step into this path of blessing with expectant ambition too secure these blessings.

The only way we can be embraced by them and live as the blessed individuals we have been positioned at in Christ and called too by His Spirit is by a transformation process inside of us.  Heart renewal, and mental repairs are the inner work of the indwelling Spirit.  He is always present and He does this in daily renewing of the mind in the Word of God.  The Word of God is His voice reassuring, restoring and regenerating us in God’s blessing.

There is the need of daily internal cleansing to combat the forces of darkness that oppose with brainwashing confusion.

So we have God who has blessed us in Christ and our part in the development of faith to be engulfed by our blessings in Jesus through His Word and Spirit within.

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2. The Palace Of Blessing Psalm 1:1 part 2 cont. Measure of Achievement

Posted on August 1, 2011 by stevemidkiff
The Palace Of Blessing                 Psalm 1:1 part 2 cont.Saturate in Your Blessings v.1 Blessed is the manHas God blessed the Jews?

Measure of Achievement by the Jews as seen in History.  Again realize we’re

contemplating a nationality of individuals that represent only 2% of the

American population and 2 hundredths of a percent of the worlds population.

 

Inventions

Encyclopedia Britannica provides its list of “Great Inventions.” Of the 267 individual inventors, more than 13 were Jews, including Zoll (the defibrillator and the pacemaker), Land (instant photography), Gabor (holography), and Ginsburg (videotape). Jews are represented on the list 22 times more than one would expect based on their population.

Symphonies

In America’s leading symphony orchestras is led by Jewish conductors one-third of the time.

Acting

They have created nearly two-thirds of Broadway’s longest running musicals.

Photography

Probably one-fourth of the greatest photographers of all time have been Jews.

Architecture

Ten percent of the world’s great master architects is Jewish.

Film & Cinema

Of movie directors who earned Oscars, 38 percent were Jews. In broad artistic recognition, nearly 30 percent of the Kennedy Center honors and 13 percent of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Awards have gone to Jews.

Literature

Mohamed called the Jews, people of the book. Its not surprising Jews have 20 percent of the Pulitzer Prizes for nonfiction. Their outpouring of books, screenplays, and newspaper and magazine articles is prodigious.

Education

In education, it is difficult to name an academic discipline in which they have not played a leading role. Certainly Jews have been seminal thinkers in philosophy (Spinoza, Maimonides, Marx), deconstruction (Derrida), economics (Marx, Ricardo, Friedman, Samuelson, Becker, Kuznets), physics (Einstein, Bohr, Gell-Mann, Feynman, Szilard), mathematics (Von Neumann, Mandelbrot, Fefferman, Zelmanov, Erdos), chemistry (Heeger, Kohn, Kroto, Olah), linguistics (Chomsky), paleontology (Gould), medicine (Flexner, Chain, Goldstein and Brown, Salk, Sabin, Prusiner), law (Brandeis, Cardozo, Frankfurter, Tribe, Dershowitz), anthropology (Boas), psychiatry and psychology (Freud, Adler, Erikson, Fromm, Rapaport, Maslow), sociology (McClelland, Riesman, Glazer, Lipset), and many other fields. Their research and teaching helped shape entire disciplines. They head three of the eight Ivy League schools (down from four several years ago), and Jewish students are 21 percent of all Ivy League students. Any review of the lists of faculty of most schools will evidence a disproportionate number of Jewish teachers. They are, for example, roughly 30 percent of the faculty of the Harvard, Stanford, and Yale law schools.

Politics

In politics, they are 11 percent of the United States Senate and 6 percent of the House of Representatives. They were 42 percent of the 100 largest political donors to the 2000 election cycle, and since 1917, when Judge Louis Brandeis was appointed, 17 percent of Supreme Court justices have been Jews. They now hold two of the nine positions.

Economics

As economists they are gifted. They have earned 38 percent of all Nobel Prizes for economics and 67 percent of the John Clarke Bates Medals for promising economists under age 40. They were instrumental in the creation of the Federal Reserve System and have headed it for twenty-five of the last thirty-five years.

Philanthropy

In philanthropy, a December 2004 Business Week listing of America’s fifty most generous benefactors included at least nineteen Jewish families and individuals. Their charitable donations totaled nearly $10 billion over less than five years. More than 90 percent of their donations went to secular causes in support of education, health care and medicine, arts, culture, and the humanities. It is remarkable that 38 percent of America’s most philanthropic people come from a group representing only 2 percent of its population.

CEO’s

Much of the wealth behind that philanthropy came from success as entrepreneurs. In that role, Jews created whole new industries and hold leading positions in many other companies. Increasingly, they also occupy the corner office as CEOs of some of America’s largest and most important companies. Of the 2003 CEOs of Fortune’s 100 largest companies, 10 to 15 percent are Jews. Of Fortune’s 2003 list of the twenty-five most powerful people in business, six (24 percent) are Jews. Of the thirty entrepreneurs included in the 2004 Fortune “America’s 40 Richest Under 40,” at five of the top ten are Jewish as are 23 percent of the Forbes 400.

Clothing

Jews pioneered the ready-to-wear garment industry and, in 1885, owned all but seven of New York’s 241 garment factories. Names like Levi Straus, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein, and Donna Karan are just a few contemporary representatives of that legacy. Of the four pioneers of prestige cosmetics – Helena Rubenstein, Elizabeth Arden, Est’e Lauder, and Charles Revson – only Elizabeth Arden was not Jewish.

Department Stores

More than half of America’s department stores were started or run by Jews including such greats as Macy’s, Federated, May Company, Bloomingdale’s, Filene’s, Saks, Abraham & Straus, Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Sears, and, in London, Marks & Spencer.

Retail

In specialty retailing, major chains such as Gap Stores, Limited, Mervyn’s, Barneys, Men’s Warehouse, Home Depot, Ritz Camera, Bed Bath & Beyond are just a few of the Jewish creations. In television retailing, both QVC and Home Shopping were largely shaped by Jews.  The world’s foremost demonstration salesman, Ron Popeil, uses television to sell products he invented.

Fine Jewelry

In diamonds, De Beers and the Lev Leviev Group are the dominant forces in the worldwide diamond trade, while Zales, Helzbergs, Whitehall, and Friedman’s are among the leading diamond and jewelry retailers.

Entrepreneurs

We drink our Starbucks coffee and have sipped Seagrams wines and distilled spirits. The Dove Bar, H’agen-Dazs, Ben & Jerry’s and Baskin-Robbins ice cream lead to our later signing up for Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, and Nutri-System programs or buying Slim-Fast in the supermarket. All these companies were founded by Jewish entrepreneurs.

Vacations

We may lounge in our Fairmont, Loews, Hyatt, Helmsley or Wynn hotel, or cruise on any of the seventy-three ships of Carnival or twenty-eight of Royal Caribbean. These companies were founded or largely shaped by Jews.

Hollywood and Entertainment

Every major Hollywood studio except United Artists was created by Jews, as were NBC and CBS. Of the three original television networks, only ABC was not started by a Jew, but Leonard Goldenson bought it seven years after its founding and ran it for forty-five years. Viacom and Comcast were largely created by two Jewish families, while Steve Ross and Gerald Levin played critical roles at Time Warner.

Publishing

In publishing, America’s newspaper of record is The New York Times, and in the nation’s capital, Katherine Meyer Graham’s son, Donald, now runs The Washington Post. The Pulitzer Prize is the legacy of the family that still runs the St. Louis Post Dispatch and Arizona Daily Star. Reuters, Newhouse, Triangle and Ziff Davis are just a few of our leading magazine publishers. Random House, Alfred A. Knopf, Simon & Schuster, and Farrar, Straus and Giroux are but four of the major book publishers created and run by Jews.

Finance

In finance, the story is much the same. Premier names like Goldman Sachs, Lehman Brothers, Bear Stearns, Salomon Brothers, Lazard Freres, and Wasserstein Perella are just a few of the contemporary names of a legacy dating back to the Rothschilds, Warburgs, Kuhn-Loebs, and Seligmans.

Private Equity

In private equity, names like Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Thomas H. Lee Partners, Blackstone Group, Hellman & Friedman, Quantum Fund, Steinhardt Partners, Claxton, Arthur Rock, Alan Patricof, Gene Kleiner, and Ben Rosen are today’s legends taking the place of Bernard Baruch and Henry Morgenthau Jr. Of the twenty-six individuals named to the Private Equity Hall of Fame, at least eight (31 percent), and perhaps as many as eleven, are Jewish.

Real Estate

Jews were generally not allowed to own real estate outside the ghetto for the better part of 1,800 years. They have compensated by becoming a major force in development and management of property all over the world. Of the five largest Real Estate Investment Trusts listed by Forbes magazine in May 2002, four were headed by Jews.

Today, Michael Bloomberg is New York’s mayor, but earlier, he created Bloomberg LP, the enterprise that gave him the wherewithal to take on a second career. It is the largest financial information company in the world.

Oil Resources

Few people know that the shell of Shell Oil traces back to a London curio shop where the Samuels family featured seashells before two sons started trading kerosene. Nor would they know that the Amoco part of BP Amoco was the creation of the father and son team of Louis and Jacob Blaustein, who also invented the railroad tank car. Amerada Hess, Aurora Oil, Marvin Davis, Occidental Petroleum, and Kaiser-Francis are just a few more of the petroleum businesses started or principally shaped by Jews.

Museums

America’s great legacy of the Guggenheim Museums and Smithsonian’s Hirschorn Museum and Sculpture Garden have their origins in the success of two great mining operations established by Jewish families.

Services

In business services, Manpower is the world’s largest temporary staffing company, just as ADP is the largest payroll processing company and H & R Block is the largest preparer of tax returns. All were started by Jews.

Technology

And lest anyone think Jews are not on the leading end of new technology, Jews:

  • Created the world’s largest and most valuable computer company (Dell, Michael Dell).
  • Co-founded the world’s most successful search engine (Google, Sergey Brin).
  • Head the world’s largest software company (Microsoft, Steve Ballmer)
  • Co-founded and head the world’s second largest software company (Oracle, Lawrence Ellison).
  • Co-founded, led and serve as chairman of the world’s dominant microprocessor and memory chip company (Intel, Andrew Grove).
  • Served as CEO or COO at three of the world’s four most valuable Internet companies (Yahoo, Terry Semel; eBay, Jeff Skoll; and IAC, Barry Diller).
  • Co-founded and head the communications protocol/chip company whose chips are in most U.S. cell phones and are slated to be utilized in the next generation of cell phones to be used worldwide (Qualcomm, Irwin Jacobs).

And this does not consider Jews vital role as labor leaders and advocates for the poor and the oppressed.

Labor Organization

While Jews were busy creating the garment industry, their fellow Jews, Bessie Abramowitz, Sidney Hillman, David Dubinsky, and others, were organizing that industry’s labor force. In that same era, Samuel Gompers headed organized labor for much of the early twentieth century. Later, Saul Alinsky, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Betty Friedan, and Gloria Steinem were just a few of the Jews devoted to social change.

Sports

While there are not many prominent Jewish athletes in today’s professional sports, most would be surprised to know they are two of the ten top NBA coaches of all time. Five of the 216 members in the NFL Hall of Fame are Jewish, and Jews own 25 percent of the NFL football teams and 28 percent of the NBA teams. Meanwhile, Jews serve as commissioners of all five major professional sports: baseball, football, basketball, hockey, and soccer. And, where the games have more to do with brains than brawn, Jews have held the world chess championship title for roughly two-thirds of the time since it began in 1834, and in bridge, the legend of the game, Charles Goren, was Jewish.

Charles Murray’s book, Human Accomplishment, looks at those who achieved excellence in the arts and sciences from 800 BC to 1950. He devotes part of that book to what he calls the “astounding” disproportionate representation of Jews among history’s great figures. Following “the Jewish Emancipation” (which he dates from 1790 to 1870), he measures the representation of Jews among the 1,277 great historical figures between 1870 and 1950. Based on their percentage of the population, he says 28 should have been Jews. “The actual number was at least 158.” His observation is corroborated in other listings of “history’s greats.” Michael Hart’s book, The 100 ‘ A Ranking of the Most Influential Persons in History, counts eight Jews among the 100 (Jesus, St. Paul, Einstein, Marx, Moses, Freud, Pincus, and Bohr). This is 35 times what one would expect.

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1. Ps.1 The Palace Of Blessing Psalm 1:1 part 1

Posted on August 1, 2011 by stevemidkiff

The Palace Of Blessing                 Psalm 1:1 part 1

Saturate in Your Blessings v.1 Blessed is the man

The blessed man is a portrait proposed for exhibition in the art gallery of our soul.  How could we not want this masterpiece of the blessing of our Creator hanging in our heart?

Is there a middle ground between the blessed individual and the cursed individual? I Corinthians mentions three categories of people; the spiritual, the carnal and the natural man.

The natural man are all those who reject Christ.

There is a sense, really, where the carnal or fleshly distinction exhibits a rejection of the Lord Jesus.  He is received and adhered to in faith for eternal salvation from the consequences of sin but refused in the day-to-day struggles with our natural inclination to sin.  Carnality is the grey zone of Christianity.

I thought it would be interesting to look at blessings, or the blessed person, from a variety of angles. We will first look at one angle where our blessings are related to those God has chosen to bless.

This is, a shared blessing, which falls under the category of common grace that all of creation experiences.  Now in some spheres of the world, common grace is more common then in other spheres and by that I mean more then just the common grace of sun and rain and oxygen.

The more common grace I’m referring to be the grace and blessing of God’s blessing because of those we have around us. This is the favor we inherit by our relationships with and treatment of others.

Abraham for example was told that God would bless anyone who blessed him.  Now the word him includes his children, the nation of Israel. On the other side of this equation is that God would curse those who curse Abraham.

Ultimately this blessing and the cursing is seen in our response to the Lord Jesus Christ who is the culminating, promised blessing of Abraham and promised blessing through Abraham.

But this blessing is initially seen in our response to the Israeli peoples who God has chosen through Abraham.

This is an amazing promise given in Genesis 12.  God is the one who reaches out to bless and through His blessing of the blessed man Abraham, He reaching to bless the world.

These are the seven blessings in Gen. 12:2-3

1. Performance   I will make of thee a great nation

Great, is not especially numerically, in contrast to other nations but great in achieving the blessing of other nations.

2. Prosperity        I will bless thee

Abraham and his children prospered materially & spiritually

3. Popularity       Make your name great

Abraham’s prominence is uncontestable, by the Israeli nation, the followers of Jesus Christ and even by the followers of Mohammed.

4. Productivity      you shalt be a blessing

Jinfo.org and Wikipedia record that:

At least 181 Jews and people of half or three quarters Jewish ancestry have been awarded the Nobel Prize, accounting for 22% of all individual recipients worldwide between 1901 and 2010, and constituting 36% of all US recipients during the same period. 

In the research fields of Chemistry, Economics, Physics, and Physiology/Medicine, the corresponding world and US percentages are 26% and 39%, respectively. 

Among women laureates in the four research fields, the Jewish percentages (world and US) are 38% and 50%, respectively.  Of organizations awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 25% were founded principally by Jews or by people of half-Jewish descent. 

Jews currently make up approximately 0.2% of the world’s population and 2% of the US population. 

There are 6 million + Jews in America.

There are almost 6 million Jews in Israel.

The next country with a sizeable population is France with

489 thousand Jews, then scattered among 47 other countries are less and less individuals of Jewish descent. The worlds total Jewish population is 13 million plus. 90 percent of all Jews reside in either the USA or Israel.

Who do we owe our blessings too?  Has God rescinded His promises of blessing these people?  No!  They make up two hundredths of the world’s population but they have been blessed in recognition for their productivity.

  • • Chemistry (31 prize winners, 20% of world total, 27% of US total)
  • • Economics (28 prize winners, 42% of world total, 55% of US total)
  • • Literature (13 prize winners, 12% of world total, 27% of US total)
  • • Peace 9 prize winners, 9% of world total, 10% of US total
  • • Physics (47 prize winners, 25% of world total, 36% of US total)
  • • Physiology or Medicine 53 prize winners, 27% of world total, 40% of US total

The Muslim world, the major resistor of the Jews, totals 1.5 billion, which makes up 20 percent of the world’s population. This is quite a contrast to the Jews, at 13.3 million, who make up 2 hundredths of a percent of the world’s population.

The Muslim world has 9 Noble Prize winners.  One of these noble winners had two daughters who married Jewish men.

Abraham and his seed have given many services to the world. In every area of life, the Jews have made many wonderful contributions. Science, aviation, photography, medicine, petroleum, and electronics to name a few areas, have all had important contributions made by Jews. And, of course, the Jews have made the most significant contributions to Christianity; the Bible is a Jewish book. What we are taught from this is when God blesses us, it is so we can bless others.

5. Permeation        I will bless them that bless thee

Any Nation, who is compassionate to the Jew is specially blessed by God. The generosity of the USA towards Israel is crucial to our blessing as a nation.

The increase in anti-Semitism in our nation could put us under the sixth promise.

6. Problems           I will curse him that curses you

Nations that have oppressed the Jews have met Divine judgment.

Babylon, Rome, Egypt, and Germany all went from major powers to oblivion or second-rate or obscure countries in contrast to their potential, because of bullying and mistreating the Jews.

He that touches you [the Jews] touches the apple of His [God’s] eye Zechariah 2:8

7. Pardon   In you shall all families of the earth be blessed

In this blessing we’re seeing Galatians 3:6-8 (Phillips)

Blessing is a relationship with God where we’re made righteous in Christ

You can go right back to Abraham to see the principle of faith in God. He, we are told, ‘believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.

Blessing is receiving our Redeemer, He physically came through Abraham

Can you not see, then, that all those who believe God are the real sons of Abraham? The scripture foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith in Christ, really proclaimed the Gospel centuries ago in the words spoken to Abraham, In you all the nations shall be blessed.

Blessing is the recompense of Righteousness on all who exercise faith

All men of faith share the blessing of Abraham who believed God, and it is counted to him and us for righteousness.

The blessed person is the one who finds his/her blessings in Christ. He or she lives to bless persons who God has chosen as His.  The blessed person is the one who seeks out others so that they too, can find their calling from Christ.

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2. Eph. 1 3 Rich Provisions part 2

Posted on July 29, 2011 by stevemidkiff

Eph. 1 3 Rich Provisions part 2

What is our rich provision of blessing in Christ based on?  I got an email from a blog sitearticle where someone used the phrase the chains of legalism and the thought of the charred feeling in spiritual reality that it incurs.  But the slogan is based on attacks on a man and a ministry, which is under accusation of promoting legalism.  The problem I see is that legalism is an activity of the flesh.  In our sin nature we try to appease God based on performance and achievement.  The chain is our own creation.  I can work at a job that expects me to be there at a certain time or asks for a certain level of productivity from me, or a standard of appearance in my dress.  This is not legalism but my reactions are what becomes the legalism.

I had a job in sales where I was expected to wear a tie and wool fabric slacks even in 90 degree weather.  If I wore cotton slacks it would have been unacceptable.  Years later the standard of expectation was lowered.  Was that legalism that the company was promoting or just a standard? Our country has lowered expectations and standard across the board from decade to decade and permissiveness is acceptance and tolerance is becoming law.  Is this grace?  Intolerance is the main thing that is becoming intolerable.

Communicate to us Our Riches

   In Our Sovereign Father v.3-6

       Articulate Your Provisions   v.3

          Define Your Person

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ

Describe Your Presents

who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings

Disclose Our Position       

in heavenly places in Christ

After his introductory greeting Paul launches out into a spontaneous run on sentence of passionate vehemence and enthusiastic faith.  He thrusts out in a soaring escalation of worship to God the Sovereign, God the Son and God the Spirit with the word blessed.  In the work Expositions of the Holy Scriptures by Alexander McLaren we read:

Put a pen into Paul’s hand, and it is like tapping a blast furnace; and out rushes a fiery stream at white heat. But there is a great deal more than fervor in the words. In the rush of his thoughts there is depth and method. We come slowly after, and try by analyzing and meditation to recover some of the fervor and the fire of such utterances as this.  Notice that buoyant, joyous, emphatic reiteration: ‘Blessed,’ ‘blest,’ ‘blessings.’ That is more than the fascination exercised over a man’s mind by a word; it covers very deep thoughts and goes very far into the center of the Christian life. God blesses us by gifts; we bless Him by words and adoring affectionate response. 

Our highest response to His most precious gifts is that we shall ‘take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord,’ and in the deep of a thankful receptive heart we say, blessed be God who has and is blessing us.

Even when we look at what we naturally feel is a curse in our experience or our feelings we glory in that infirmity knowing that that is what opens the power of Christ blessing on us.

Describe Your Presents

who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings

Disclose Our Position      

in heavenly places in Christ

The source of our blessing is God, the scope of our blessings is all spiritual blessings, the sphere of our blessings is heavenly places, and the subject and spring of our blessings is that we’re in Christ and He’s in us.  We so foolishly get hung up on the material, the bits and pieces of this life, objects, items, and stuff.  Sometimes the only transitional access to move us into the heavenly places in Christ is pressure, even poverty, and pain.

This is how Paul transcends, he’s writing of our height of experience, via the pain and pressure of prison.  Ephesians is one of four prison letters where we the see the exchange of deprivation for the exuberating of delight.  Now prison on the outer core seems so wretched and negative but only if we can’t make the changeover and complete the conversion.  To mature in Christ we have to make the switch in values, see how our sovereign Lord is working all things for our good.  We can achieve comprehension in our personal intimacy with Christ, without incurring the correction lenses to what seems like a loss.

There is nothing wrong with things, physical comfort and earthly luxury.  But we need to see is the arena of our activities and what’s coming between us and our true riches and blessings in Christ.  Our life, where we have all the value God has for us is in a relationship that is a walk of dependence on Christ.

If we find ourselves in depression, despair, disillusionment and dysfunctional feelings through our lacks and losses it’s possible we haven’t walked across the bridge of these experiences of switching our performance based idolatry of religion for what we already have been given in Christ.  Our insecurities in self, needs to be left for our security in what we have and are in the Lord.

When Paul first traveled to Ephesus as recorded in Acts 19 he asks the believers if they had received the Holy Spirit when they believed.  They said they hadn’t heard of the Holy Spirit.  Really that’s a common snare of our day in the local church.  The Spirit that is taught is a spirit of affluence in some prosperity heresy, or any other number of so called spirits of success, the spirit of political diversion as if we have here any continuing city, a spirit of tradition, denominational affiliation or non-denominational denomination.  We have the feel good spirit and on and on.

But the true Spirit indwells us and He is our channel of  blessings from God the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord. He is recognizable by the fruit of character that comes from His filling, and the authenticity of worship and the transparency of a walk in the light of God’s presence.

It was A.W. Tozer who said:

If the Holy Spirit were removed from the first Century church 90 percent of its activity would have ceased and if the Holy Spirit were removed from today’s contemporary church 90 percent of its activity would continue.

We operate as believers in two spheres, we’re in the earthly if there is such a word, but our source, strength, security and satisfaction are in the heavenlies.  That’s where our citizenship is, where our name is written where we battle in prayerful conflict and where Christ is.

We’re not talking about a territory that’s very distant or removed.  It’s a place where the eye of faith rises, and draws real life from and where the eyes of our comprehension are enlightened and informed.  This is the sphere of God’s presence and the orb of our true joy and pleasurable peace.

J.B. Phillips renders Eph. 1:3:

Praised be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ for giving us through Christ every spiritual benefit as citizens of Heaven!  God from the beginning of time and really, before time was created, had one intention, and that was our total blessing and privilege not only for us but all his creation.  He has followed through on that objective and even though fallen angels have distorted and continue to deform and disfigure our view of God and fallen men have defamed Him, He has sent His Son the Lord Jesus Christ and His Spirit to fill us with every spiritual blessing for life and eternity.  Our blessings come from a supernatural sphere the heavenlies, a supernatural person Jesus Christ and it’s a supernatural result called spiritual blessings.

The blessings are as Lewis Sperry Chafer calls them possessions and privileges, assets and bounties.  Chafer in his eight volumes, Systematic Theology, lists a total of 33 blessings; others break them down in a variety of analysis.  The important aspect of it all is a daily moment-by- moment experience of the presence and personality of Christ in intimate fellowship and communication.

The challenge is, do we allow the prisons of our life to make us living epistles of Christ’s privileges and power?  As we watch the deficit soar and we cringe in our own personal deprivation, dispossession and various deficiencies are we exchanging it all for the powerful provisions of Christ’s presences and the peace and pleasure of His Spirit?  Our proviso is we are blessed with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places!!!

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1. Eph. 1:1-14 Absorb Us in Our Riches part 1

Posted on July 27, 2011 by stevemidkiff

Eph. 1:1-14 Absorb Us in Our Riches 

Eph. 1:1-2 A Rich Introduction part 1

Compel With Riches in the salute Of Paul v.1-2

Cultivate How To Be Rich In Service v.1          Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ    

Counsel How To Be Rich In Strategy                 by the will of God

Comprehend How We Are Rich In Standing  to the saints which are at Ephesus 

Confide How We Are Rich In Significance      and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

Compel in The Richness Of Our Supply v.2     Grace be to you

Crown To Be Rich In Serenity                                and peace, from God our Father,

                                                                                            and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

In the interests of examining our untaxable assets I’m proposing a detailed examination in the balance draft in the letter to the Ephesians.  Paul being inspired to write this postal note or in our day it would be an email while in prison in the Roman Empire.  He’d lost a majority of his freedoms, he’d been impoverished in physical and relational possibilities but instead of allowing his perspective to focus on his physical poverty he meditates on his spiritual riches.  He’s writing not only to those in the first century but the Spirit of Christ through Paul is reaching out to everyone of us who will take the time to listen.

The Lord wants us to change our perspective from the physical to the spiritual.  He wants us to be absorbed in our riches spiritually.  We so easily get engrossed in our problems instead of our privileges, wrapped up and captivated by the predicament of a situation when we should we immersed in the possibilities and potential of every aspect in the state of our affairs.

My outline of Ephesians is written in the format of a prayer which I feel is the impact and spirit of the text.  The theme and intent of its message and content is a plea to revel in our riches relationally in Christ.

Poverty is a subjective term in that it varies from country to country in its definition of the quality of life being experienced.  Poverty in general refers to the condition of not having the means to afford basic human needs such as clean water, nutrition, health care,education, clothing and shelter.

Absolute poverty is destitution or total impoverishment, deprivation and inescapable misery.

Relative poverty is the condition of having fewer resources or less income than others within a society or country we find ourselves in.

Comparative poverty is falling below the averages materially of those we are around.  I’m defining physical poverty but what about spiritual poverty?  Are we living from moment to moment devoid of our spiritual riches in Christ?  Is our physical, psychological and emotional dynamic robbing us of our spiritual resources and reserves?  Are our losses and lacks in past relationships blinding and robbing us to the assets and possessions we have in an abundant relationship of unlimited connection and intimacy that we should be engaged in and savoring?  Are we captivated in a moment by moment fascination of our immersion in Christ or are we wallowing in a prison of wrong perspective and insecurity?

Compel With Riches in The salute Of Paul v.1-2

       Cultivate How To Be Rich In Service v.1        Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ  

The first two verses of Ephesians is Paul’s salute and is a respectful greeting a gesture of acknowledgement.  Paul knew the riches of his identity and he starts in his letter with that to cultivate in each of us how rich we are.  Apostle means messenger and the name Paul means small.  We are small and poor in ourselves but we have the richest message of all communication and that is a point that can be breathed in and enjoyed and displayed for we are of Jesus Christ, and we walk with Jesus Christ in us, through us and He is dispatching every situation around us.  We are serving a living intimately active savior and king whose desire is to fill us with His life every moment.  Our life responses are a living message, an apostleship of Jesus Christ in our life.  We’re small in ourselves but large in Christ.

Counsel How To Be Rich In Strategy by the will of God 

Being rich in strategy is the capacity of knowing the purposes and plans of God.  How many times in a day do we say I don’t know, how much do we get tangled in a web of disillusionment and defeat about our circumstances.  God has a will for us, a determination and force which can impel us on in His desires and purposes right now.  We don’t need to discover the will of God for in a sense His will is us having the right perspective and perception.  It’s a gathering in of all that we have and are in Him.  God has an individualized strategy for each of us and our outlook and angle should be to be enveloped in the riches of His tactics and approach.

Comprehend How We Are Rich In Standing      to the saints which are at Ephesus, 

Saint means set apart and every one of us have things we set apart and make special.  I have a couple of things I set apart and keep track of through the day.  One is my glasses as they are fragile and I need them to see, then my wallet which has my ID, bank card and a few dollars which allows me the ability to make some purchases.  Finally I keep a special eye on my cell phone and laptop which are sources of communication.  These are my set apart things and we are the Lords saints or set apart ones.  We are rich in this position or standing in the Lord, this set apart position, and we need to deepen in our comprehension of it.  It’s ridiculous to feel like rejects, losers and vagrant dismal beggers, and as if no one cares or likes us, for we are rich in the Lord’s feelings about us.

Confide How We Are Rich In Significance            and to the faithful in Christ Jesus:

We are rich in significance.  Who is important in the estimation of our culture, you know, the individuals of impact, substance and magnitude.  Our economy of value and the Lords assessment of importance and worth are two entirely different merit measurements.  God values faithfulness, those which are authentic to His word, accurate to His truth, devoted to His Spirit and loyal to Christ.  Faithful means dependable, trustworthy, committed and dedicated.  This is what develops us in being rich in significance.  It’s in our reliability and closeness to His word that we become and are made to be realistically significant in His personal qualities.

Compel in The Richness Of Our Supply v.2       Grace be to you

Grace is not some static feature.  Static means inactive, inert and motionless.  Grace is an active energization, an activator.  It’s the empowering force of God’s favor and supportive kindness.  Grace is the impelling ingredient of God’s active dynamic love.

Crown To Be Rich In Serenity  and peace, from God our Father,

                                                              and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

The end result of measuring through meditation the riches of our supply is that we feel the riches of our serenity.  We experience the growing measure of our peace from God as our Father and our peace from this intimate relationship in the Lord Jesus Christ.

In this introduction from Ephesians the Spirit of Christ through the apostle Paul gives us an encouraging greeting to drink in and imbibe our Riches.

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160. Eph 5 26 27 Obstacles To Love part 160

Posted on July 26, 2011 by stevemidkiff

Eph 5 26 27 Obstacles To Love part 160

A Dignifying Love v.26 That he might sanctify
A Disinfecting Love and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word

What causes love to falter and flop? 1Corinthians 13 guarantees that love will never fail? If we know that love is the key to success, well why all the miscarriages of love, and why all the breakdowns in marriage?

I John 3:23 states, Faith works by love. Love is the outcome of faith so if the product of faith is love and love is not working then we have to get to the root, which is where we lack in faith.

Love is greater then faith but love is the fruit of faith.

Psalms 1 says we’re to be like a tree. So if we are trees the root of our life is to be planted by the rivers of the water of the Word. The root is our faith and the fruit of our tree is love.

The better the root system is drawing from the water of the Word and the water of the Spirit who inspired and flows through the pages of God’s word the more solid our faith.

The fruit of the Spirit is love and the fruit of faith is love.
If our delight is in the law of God which is all summed up in love and we meditate on love continuously our life will be will rooted and prospering in love that doesn’t fail.

I had a person, who claimed to have faith in Christ, maintained that they believed in the Word of God and walked with the Lord, tell me that they didn’t have to love me.

When I look into my own heart and examine my flaws of love and the inadequacies of loves fruit, I wonder over my lacks. Am I saying the same thing in my ingratitude and insecurities about others? Am I saying in my life that I don’t have to love?

In working on this idea I get aggravated and humiliated over lacks of kindness in me that are senseless and foolish.

Os Guinness in his book on Doubt In Two Minds devotes an entire chapter to ingratitude. He writes, that if we are viewing ingratitude rightly, he believes that this is our major cause for doubt and a step away from faith toward failure.

Guinness’s idea is that doubt is not unbelief but rather it’s a middle place between faith and unbelief. But that middle position is an unstable one. A double minded person is unstable in all their ways.

If we doubt, we will not doubt for long. Either we will move from doubt in the direction of a stronger faith, or we will move from doubt in the direction of unbelief.

Jesus said no person could serve two masters; two affections can’t master the heart at the same time. We’ll love one and hate the other or we’ll hold to the one and flee from the other.

And whether we do one or the other depends on how we deal with what causes us to be unsettled. Guinness sees the causes of our unsettling as: ingratitude, a faulty view of God, weak foundations, lack of commitment, lack of growth, unruly emotions, and fearing to believe.

He calls them “seven families of doubt.” Ingratitude is the cause of doubt he starts with.

Why is ingratitude so dangerous? Thanklessness is based upon a willful unawareness of basic facts about God. If we lack a proper relationship to him, think He is outside of our lives, and the circumstance we find ourselves in. When we worry over the providential dealings of a active involved God we will be ungrateful, lacking in adoration and affection for God and inadequate in our love for each other.

Romans 1:18–20 teaches that the existence of God is abundantly revealed in nature. Not only does the Lord exist but His existence is more of a reality then our own existence. He can be seen everywhere around us but we are free to ignore Him and cop a lack in expressions of worship, praise and gratitude for all He is constantly doing.

We routinely can react in anger, sour responses and complaining. What we’re doing is demonstrating our doubts in God. We see what He allows to go on around us, and what He allows into our life in the aspects of our health, mishaps and anguishes.

This can really stir a bitter acrimony about life because we doubt God’s good purposes in our life. We become complainers and reactors with anger spilling out in various ways. Sometimes it belches out in caustic comments, sometimes in criticisms, put downs, unkind comments, sarcasm, cynicism and pessimistic distrust. Then we can absolve it all by saying we’re kidding. This is all from a lack of faith and the fruit is the opposite of love. We lose perspective and spawn a crop of instability, insecurity, inadequacy and insubordination. Doubt drags us down into bitter unbelief.

We may know God is alive and active, of course, we are claiming to be believers, we see Him, and he has brought us into being. He is the Creator of everything.

So if we have life, it is from God. If we have health, it is from God. The food we eat, the clothes we wear, the friends we share, and everything good is from God. If we fail to be grateful for this, it is because we are not really acknowledging him or are rejecting a proper relationship to him.

But we sometimes experience bad things, too. We suffer pain and hunger. We get sick. Eventually we all die. Now these physical issues of our fallen world aren’t an excuse for aggravation and thanklessness? Not really, no, not in view of faith and the Lords using all for His glory in us. We are still not getting what we really deserve; we’ve received Jesus and escaped being cast into a lost eternity.

It’s not, what we don’t have, but what we do have. Nor is it our physical lacks for there are deformities and warps of disfigurement we’ve been kept from. My damages are caused by my own lack of discipline and my lack of love is caused by my doubts in God and His perfect love to me and for me in everything that is going on around me day in and day out.

Praise God, He is sovereign, holy, all knowing, all-powerful and perfect in His dealings in love to each of us. His abundant mercy is something I can take my shaky doubts too, and my fears, and place them thankfully at His throne of grace for forgiveness and compassion.

I suppress truth when I doubt. In doubting I then erect alterations of ingratitude when I take my daily circumstances and become irritated with those around me. I should be initiating acts of kindness in place of actions of doubt. Doubt emotes into derangements of insecurity. We can easily and often do habitually rationalize our doubts and crusty unloving actions.

Faith fosters gratitude and gratitude blooms by acts of kind words and actions. These circle back promoting faith which will in turn nurture love and thoughtfulness to God and to those He has surrounded us with for the expressions of love.

But if we’re not conscious of this we’ll erect a great mass of pestering obstacles of ingratitude. This broods multiple actions of doubt where we show how we’re unsure leading deeper into uncertain hesitancy. If we strip it all back we find that we’re involved in the sin of suppressing the truth and refusing God His place and His worship.

Martyn Lloyd Jones writes: We need to thank God for his mercy, for his goodness, for his dealings with us in providence. We take the sunshine for granted; we are annoyed if we don’t get it. We take the rain for granted. How often do we thank God for all these gifts and blessings!

God is the giver of every good and perfect gift; he is the Father of mercies. He deserves our thanks for everything. How can we completely ignore Him or worse vent invectives and unloving diatribes of disgust on those He’s surrounded us with. Jesus said in that you do it unto the least of these you do it unto me. Who is so stupid as to stagger around and curse God and those He’s given us to love and care about. We displaying our attitude toward God in every thing we say and do for He is doing a work in our day. We are foolish to curse God. Joseph said it well when he told his brothers you meant it for evil but God meant it for good. He had no doubts in all things working together for good and he loved God in all things.

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